Live data from Hacker News

Facebook is cooked

pilk.website

101–110 of 890 posts

Re: Facebook is cooked

#101
post #67
post #60

I stopped when it started showing propaganda from the CCP (at least it was clearly labelled as such). https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/chinese-state-... https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/1i67ja9/whats_going_... It was already slop before that.

> I stopped when it started showing propaganda from the CCP What did you do when it showed you propaganda from other countries?

Well, I'm in the US, I already know how to recognize US propaganda and ignore it :)

I don't think I was shown anything that was clearly labelled as "state-sponsored-media" from any other country and I don't think I saw anything that was propaganda, but not labelled as such, although I typically scrolled past the obvious ads and AI slop so I might have missed something.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#102
post #10

I'm a parent in my 50's. "Peak Facebook" is years in the past for me. But it was great for a while. My spouse, friends, friends' spouses, and I were all sharing stories and pictures of our kids, travels, and experiences, such as dining experiences or hikes. There was so much joyous sharing. And it wasn't done for clicks, views, or monetization. It was just friends, sharing their experiences, encouraging each other, e…

What do your social groups use nowadays?

iMessages (which supports groups well with RCS), Signal, Telegram, GroupMe. Slack, IRC, and Zulip for online groups.

(early 40s)

Re: Facebook is cooked

#103

I had a similar experience recently, where I logged in to Facebook after not using it for years and was shocked by how much garbage was there. My spouse does use Facebook somewhat regularly so I looked at her feed and it was much more reasonable. I wonder if for those of us that haven't used Facebook in years the recommendation algorithm is essentially default. Which much like the default youtube algorithm, is comple…

I logged in to instagram after like 5 years and my whole feed is literally just thots and AI generated content, even though I follow a crapload of accounts.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#104
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience for me and it’s just been replaced with… nothing. My gaming buddies talk on Discord but I just don’t really hear from my aunts and uncles and cousins anymore. It’d be a hassle to even figure out how to contact them. Only 13 people showed up to my high school reunion last year from a graduating class of ~400.

Same. Idk how college communication work now; we had class groups and planned everything over FB events/pages back then. For friends, I started a few text group chats to stay in touch. It's really annoying because someone has Android and RCS is broken on someone's end. Some also use FB Messenger, but nobody 2 years younger or older than me is on that.

When I finished my undergrad a few years ago, we were relying heavily on GroupMe chats, with the occasional Slack and one or two LinkedIn groups mixed in. Discord was just starting to exit the gaming sphere and hit the mainstream though. I'm willing to bet it's absolutely dominating the space now.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#105
post #93

This is the tech version of "nobody I know voted for Nixon": FB's position in the US & Europe is very misleading from a global perspective. In the Philippines, say, Facebook is the internet. Every business runs on it. People use it instead of news. Everybody uses Messenger to chat. You get free minutes with your phone that are specifically for FB/IG/Messenger.

Addendum to this: my filipina aunt is elderly and I was absolutely shocked at the amount of highly specific AI generated content seemingly targeted directly at her on Facebook.

Except instead of thirst traps it was a weird mix of outrage porn, religious imagery, and kids + pets being cute, singing or rescued from odd situations.

I asked a few questions of her to try and figure out if she like really grasped that it was AI, and she knew the general idea, but there's already so many filters and choppy edits of things it was honestly just too hard for her to make the distinction.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#106
post #83

I had a similar experience recently, where I logged in to Facebook after not using it for years and was shocked by how much garbage was there. My spouse does use Facebook somewhat regularly so I looked at her feed and it was much more reasonable. I wonder if for those of us that haven't used Facebook in years the recommendation algorithm is essentially default. Which much like the default youtube algorithm, is comple…

YT is like this too, if you're not logged in, thirst trap, crazy stuff until you build up a search history (even not logged in)

Now and then it gets things right, but I find a lot of YT recs to be pretty dubious, and find it is trying to bias me in this direction or that direction. It's pretty pathetic.

The search function is also useless. About the only Scottish history content I ever get rec'd is Scotland History Tours. While I like his channel, it is not the only show in town and it doesn't go very deep.

When I got my last YT account I could see it was trying to access which news I should see. It was trying to link me to one American party or the other. I just clicked "not interested" into most of the partisan bait content. Not my circus, not my clowns.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#107

The current leader for me for worst questions suggested by Meta's AI was on a photo someone took of some conspiracy theorist's van with the spraypainted message "THEY EAT BABIES IN DENVER". The suggested questions from their AI were: - Baby-eating restaurants in Denver - Denver's unique food scene wtaf meta. Beyond that, I simply don't see how Meta can possibly ever monetize their investment in AI. People are and wil…

Meta doesn't need to monetize their AI directly the way OpenAI or Anthropic would do. Meta runs ads, and they can use AI to help advertisers create content, target people, engage, etc.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#108
My facebook feed is mostly low-effort reposted memes from tumblr/twitter/reddit, political ragebait, and screenshots of jokes from TV shows.

It's usually not AI (at least not obviously) but it's still slop.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#109

I had a similar experience recently, where I logged in to Facebook after not using it for years and was shocked by how much garbage was there. My spouse does use Facebook somewhat regularly so I looked at her feed and it was much more reasonable. I wonder if for those of us that haven't used Facebook in years the recommendation algorithm is essentially default. Which much like the default youtube algorithm, is comple…

I wonder this too about X: when I sundowned my Twitter account when I started seeing 80% "no question literal nazi-posting" by bluechecks on my feed, I unfollowed everyone and kept the account just to prevent someone posting on what was my username for over a decade.

So now that I follow no one, when I click a link from Reddit or HN to X, my "For You" page is:

- Asian pornography; AI generated "vibes" videos of machines doing "oddly satisfying" things; Elon Musk; American right-wing politicians and pundits screaming about "woke" or jerking off ICE videos; AI or real public sex outdoors at festivals?

Of course, I don't use X, and don't seek this stuff out, and only see it there.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#110
> Why do women feel refreshed after arguments

This sort of thing is perfect ragebait that Facebook et al love to serve to their products.

The only problem for FB is that there's nowhere to angrily contradict. I suppose their algo feed shunted this author into the young male to incel radicalization pipeline? They must serve differently enraging suggested questions once they have more data on the viewer.

Post reply on HN